by Jim Lobe
Sixty-one percent of the American public prefers a deal permitting Iran to continue limited uranium enrichment and imposing intrusive inspections on its nuclear facilities in exchange for some sanctions relief, according to a unique new survey released here Tuesday.
In contrast to previous polling on attitudes toward Iran’s nuclear program, the survey, conducted [...]]]>
by Jim Lobe
Sixty-one percent of the American public prefers a deal permitting Iran to continue limited uranium enrichment and imposing intrusive inspections on its nuclear facilities in exchange for some sanctions relief, according to a unique new survey released here Tuesday.
In contrast to previous polling on attitudes toward Iran’s nuclear program, the survey, conducted by the Program for Public Consultation and the Center for International & Security Studies at the University of Maryland between June 18 and July 7, also found no significant differences between self-identified Republicans and Democrats on the issue.
The poll, which was released as negotiations between Iran and six world powers intensified in Vienna in advance of the July 20 deadline for an agreement, was distinct in the level of detail provided to the respondents before they ultimately had to choose between “a) making a deal that allows Iran to enrich but only to a low level, provides more intrusive inspections and gradually lifts some sanctions; [and] b) not continuing the current negotiations, imposing more sanctions, and pressing Iran to agree to end all uranium enrichment.”
As noted by George Perkovich, who heads the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the survey methodology “modeled a rational thought process” much more rational than that which can normally be found in the US government. “Most members of Congress don’t spend much time on this except when they meet with someone who’s writing a check,” he said at the survey’s release.
Nonetheless, he and Suzanne Maloney, an Iran specialist at the Brookings Institution, agreed that the survey’s findings suggests that, if indeed a deal is reached with Iran, the Obama administration will be in a good position to sell it.
This “Citizen Cabinet” method simulated the policy-making process: respondents were given briefings on the subject and arguments — both for and against — the two options before they were asked to make a final recommendation.
The briefings and arguments were vetted in advance by independent experts and Congressional staffers from both sides of the aisle, according to Steven Kull, the Program’s director, to ensure as much accuracy and balance as possible within the US political context. You can judge this for yourself by examining the study and its methodology (beginning on p. 5). More than one staffer, Kull said Tuesday at a press briefing, commented that the respondents “are going to know more than their Member (of Congress) knows” after reviewing the material.
“At this point, the public doesn’t have a clear idea,” said Kull. “[This survey] tells us what would happen if we had a bigger debate,…and people had more information.”
All of the briefing materials were provided to respondents via the Internet, and access was arranged for those who lacked it. According to Kull, only 16 out of the 748 randomly selected respondents did not complete the exercise, which also required participants to assess each of the arguments separately for their persuasiveness before making a final policy choice. I won’t bore you with further details about the methodology, but here are the main findings:
Still, it’s worth noting that the numbers who prefer a deal over increased sanctions are not so very different from those taken last November when the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) was being negotiated between the P5+1 (the US, UK, France, China, and Russia plus Germany) and Iran in Geneva. Sixty-four percent of respondents in an ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted a week before the Geneva accord said they supported “an agreement in which the United States and other countries would lift some of their economic sanctions against Iran, in exchange for Iran restricting its nuclear program in a way that makes it harder to produce nuclear weapons.” Thirty percent were opposed.
A second poll taken by CNN on the eve of the agreement found 56 percent of respondents in favor of “an interim deal that would ease some …economic sanctions and in exchange require Iran to accept major restrictions on its nuclear program but not end it completely and submit to greater international inspection of its nuclear facilities.” Thirty-nine percent opposed. In that poll, however, there was a much more significant gap between Republican and Democratic respondents than that found in the survey released Tuesday. While 66% of Democrats supported such a deal in the CNN poll; only 45% of Republicans did.
In addition to the questions about a possible nuclear deal, the new survey asked respondents a number of other pertinent questions after they completed the briefings and made their final recommendations on the nuclear negotiations:
On possible confidence-building bilateral measures, the survey found that:
In responding to the individual arguments made in the survey for and against a deal with Iran, Republicans generally tended to be somewhat more hawkish than Democrats, although independents tended to be substantially more so. More significant partisan differences appeared in their opinions about Iran’s government: 40% of Republicans said they held a “very unfavorable view” of Tehran, compared to 24% of Democrats and 27% of Republicans. Perhaps the most striking difference emerged on the questions regarding the compatibility of the Islamic world and the West: while 62% of Republicans said they considered conflict between the two inevitable, only 33% of Democrats agreed with that view.
Photo: Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, US Secretary of State John Kerry shake hands after world powers reached an interim agreement with Iran over its nuclear program on Nov. 24, 2013 in Geneva. Credit: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images)
]]>by Francois Nicoulaud
“No deal is better than bad deal:” that’s the mantra that has been heard ad nauseam in the recent past and presented as self-evident of U.S. toughness in the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.
But is it really so? Of course, everybody knows what “no deal” means. It is [...]]]>
by Francois Nicoulaud
“No deal is better than bad deal:” that’s the mantra that has been heard ad nauseam in the recent past and presented as self-evident of U.S. toughness in the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.
But is it really so? Of course, everybody knows what “no deal” means. It is more difficult to discern at what point a deal becomes bad, rather than good, or even average. But plenty of experts are ready to help. A bad deal, they tell us, is a deal which would allow the Iranians to produce the material necessary for a bomb in less than six months. A bad deal is a deal which would not clarify once and for all what kind of research the Iranians have been pursuing in the past for manufacturing a nuclear explosive device. A bad deal is a deal which would allow the Iranians to pursue their ballistic missile program. And so on… One ends up understanding that any deal less than perfect would amount to an unacceptably bad deal.
But such an approach goes against any diplomatic process in which compromise and give and take are key notions. It leads to the conclusion that a perfect deal is a deal which does not have to be negotiated, a deal in which the winner takes all. And indeed, there are people who believe that non-proliferation is too important a question to be submitted to any kind of compromise. It deserves only perfect deals.
History, though, does not confirm this approach. The mother of all non-proliferation agreements, the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), concluded in 1968, was in each and all its articles one big compromise. A few countries were allowed to develop nuclear arsenals, others not. The countries that agreed to forsake any military nuclear ambitions were allowed to bring their nuclear capabilities up to the thin red line beyond which could start the manufacturing of an explosive nuclear device. Nobody was happy at the result when the Treaty was signed and nobody is satisfied today by the state of affairs that has developed since.
Thus, the NPT was a deeply imperfect agreement, and indeed, a kind of bad deal. But would a “no deal” have been better? Obviously not. In a different field, the strategic arms limitation agreements concluded during and after the Cold War between the US and the USSR, later on Russia, and signed on the US side by Presidents Nixon, Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Obama… were certainly deeply imperfect. But, again, would “no deals” have been better?
Considering the Iranian negotiation, one could risk being provocative by saying that almost any deal (at least in the ambit of the current negotiation) could be better than no deal at all. No deal means the unchecked development of the Iranian program, the continuing increase of its enrichment capacities and stock of enriched uranium, the completion of a reactor of the plutonium-production type, and eventually the resumption of active research on engineering a nuclear device. By way of consequence, it would mean a growing tension between the international community and the Islamic Republic, possibly culminating in strikes on its nuclear facilities and in armed confrontation.
Compared to such a prospect, a far less-than-perfect agreement could appear indeed as highly desirable. Let us remember that international relations are nurtured by iterative and evolutionary processes. “Solve-all”, perfectly designed agreements, the epitome of which could well have been the Treaty of Versailles, seldom produce brilliant and lasting results. What is critical is to grab at the right moment the maximum of what is within reach. The art of diplomacy lies precisely in the ability to first discern, and then to join and knit together the extremes of what can be willingly accepted by the conflicting parties. It incorporates also the humility of leaving to others the task of solving at a later stage questions not yet fully addressed or wholly answered, in the knowledge that new circumstances created by an agreement will create new possibilities for progress. It keeps in mind that even an imperfect agreement, if faithfully implemented by the parties, can be a kind of confidence-building machine, opening the way to further advances. This is precisely what happened with the November 24 Joint Plan of Action between the P5+1 and Iran: that accord was transitory and therefore essentially imperfect, but it created the proper atmosphere for a more ambitious step forward.
Given the current state of the negotiations, how can these general considerations be translated into concrete terms? Let us limit ourselves to the most difficult point; that is, the acceptable level of Iranian enrichment activities. Here, the obvious line of compromise turns around capping them for a few years the present level of employed enrichment capacity – expressed in Separation Work Units (SWU) in order neutralize the consequences of the possible introduction of more efficient centrifuges. The figure to be retained would then be between 8,000 and 10,000 SWU per year.
For this, the Iranians have to admit that they do not need to develop an enrichment capacity on an industrial scale (about 50,000 SWU per year and over) as long as do not break ground on the main structures of their future nuclear power plants. And they should take advantage of this interval to develop more productive and more secure centrifuges than the primitive, outdated model that forms the bulk of their present stock of working centrifuges. They also need to progress significantly in the technology of nuclear-fuel manufacturing in order to be ready in due time if they want to meet at least partially the needs of their future nuclear power plants.
On the other side, the West should consider the enormous political difficulty the Iranian government would face if it had to dismantle even part of the nation’s hard-won enrichment capacity. It is true that accepting the preservation of this capacity at its present level would open the theoretical risk of the Iranians quickly acquiring significant quantities of highly enriched uranium, thus opening the way to the bomb. But considering the self-destructive consequences of such a blatant breach of agreement, the risk is very limited indeed, and by all means much more limited than the risks raised by the absence of any deal. Is this risk really unmanageable for the coalition of the world’s most powerful countries, given the sophistication of their diplomatic, intelligence, and contingency-planning capacities? Of course, such a compromise could be easily depicted with equal vehemence as a bad deal on both sides. And that is why it is probably the right compromise, and a fair deal.
Photo: The P5+1 foreign ministers, with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif at United Nations Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, November 24, 2013. Credit: State Department photo/Public Domain
]]>by Mitchell Plitnick
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to the United States has ended in an unprecedented failure. On the Palestinian front, the Iranian front and the domestic US front, Netanyahu’s efforts last week ran badly aground. Let’s review the categories.
Iran
Netanyahu himself illustrated his greatest failure: his attempt to [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to the United States has ended in an unprecedented failure. On the Palestinian front, the Iranian front and the domestic US front, Netanyahu’s efforts last week ran badly aground. Let’s review the categories.
Iran
Netanyahu himself illustrated his greatest failure: his attempt to divert the conversation about Iran by making a big show of intercepting a ship carrying rockets, ostensibly, according to Israel, headed for the Gaza Strip. Bemoaning the lack of global outrage that he had hoped would sabotage the talks between Iran and world powers on the nuclear issue, Netanyahu told the Israeli cabinet upon his return that: “”The goal of seizing the arms ship was to expose Iran’s true face. I say this in order to bring it to the attention of Ms. Ashton, who is now visiting Tehran, and I wish to ask her whether she asked her hosts about the shipment of weapons to terrorist organizations.”
In fact, there are very serious questions about the incident that are not being raised. It may be best that they’re not, because it is a reflection of the minor impact the incident has thus far had on the talks with Iran. The timing of the Israeli intercept was obviously staged to coincide with Netanyahu’s visit to the US to speak at the annual AIPAC conference and to meet with US President Barack Obama. As Amir Rappaport points out, the operation was being planned for months and was carried out far outside of Israeli waters, so the timing was no accident.
The plan fails in its very conception, though. At no point did Iran agree to stop its support for Hezbollah and Hamas in order to pursue these talks, nor did anyone expect them to. But other questions can be raised here as well. Was this, as Netanyahu alleges, Iran showing its “true face” as it masquerades behind the apparent moderation of Hassan Rouhani and Javad Zarif or was it, as many observers suspect, an attempt by Iranian hardliners to undermine the efforts of the moderates? Indeed, there is some question as to whether the weapons were even intended for Gaza.
It is also odd that weapons from Syria are brought to Iran to be smuggled all the way back to Gaza; the point of the Iran-Syria connection is for such flows to run in the opposite direction, although this could, perhaps, be explained by the ongoing civil war in Syria. In part, that explanation is connected to increased Israeli surveillance of Syrian munitions. That, however, raises the question of why Iran, knowing how closely Israel is watching Syria, would engage in such an operation now.
There are many questions about this incident, not the least of which is the veracity of Israel’s version of events, absent any proof they have made public about the weapons’ destination; they could have been heading for Hamas, to Islamic Jihad (as Israel claims) in Gaza, to anti-government militias in Egypt, to groups in Sudan… There is a lot here that is unclear at best in the Israeli version of events, although certainly nothing to prove that any part of it is untrue.
But what is clear is that the response from the United States and Europe is considerably less than Netanyahu had hoped for. No one believes this shows Iran’s “true face” because no one ever believed that engagement on the nuclear issue by itself was going to change Iran’s position and policy vis–à–vis Israel. What can do that, as Zarif has strongly indicated, is an agreement that the Palestinians clearly accept. So, where are we with that?
Palestinians and the Kerry peace plan
Netanyahu didn’t have much to say about peace with the Palestinians, but what little he did say was a clear attempt to negate any possibility of success on the part of US Secretary of State John Kerry. His very first remark to the fawning crowd at the AIPAC conference was a greeting “from Jerusalem, the eternal, undivided capital of Israel and the Jewish people.” Not surprisingly, this did not sit well outside the hall of sycophants at AIPAC. His only other substantive statement was a call on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to recognize Israel as a “Jewish state,” something neither Jews nor Israelis can even agree to a definition of and that everyone knows is a non-starter for Abbas.
This demand is a threadbare attempt to get the Palestinians to acknowledge, before an agreement, that they have no claim to a return of refugees (fair for Israel to try to win in talks if they want, but unreasonable to demand as a precondition, as Israel generally has), that Palestinian citizens of Israel must be content with second-class status and most of all, that the Zionist historical narrative is more legitimate than the Palestinian one. No leader of any people would ever agree to such a thing, and Netanyahu is well aware of this.
But outside of the lock-step supporters of Israel in AIPAC and their fellow travelers to the right of that organization, no one is buying into this demand even though its crucial for Netanyahu. For months now, it has been getting clearer and clearer that Kerry’s efforts were likely to fail and much of what both Netanyahu and Abbas have been doing and saying has been geared toward escaping blame, especially US blame, for this likely failure. Bibi needs the demand for recognition of a “Jewish state” to be seen as reasonable, but he’s not winning the battle.
“The level of mistrust is as large as any level of mistrust I’ve ever seen, on both sides,” Kerry told a House of Representatives Appropriations Committee hearing on Wednesday. With Netanyahu now back in Israel and Abbas slated to come to Washington next week, this is a clear statement of pessimism from the one man who, whatever the reality of the talks, has insisted on maintaining a show of optimism. The prospect of failure is becoming more certain, but thus far, Netanyahu has failed to gain the upper hand in escaping blame, as Ehud Barak did with Bill Clinton in 2000.
The US domestic audience
On the US front, the situation is unprecedented. The good wishes most US citizens hold for Israel remain steady, indicating the same widespread support for Israel’s security that has always existed. But the war-weary United States is withdrawing into itself and the diminishing support for Israeli policies is a reflection of this. However, that’s far from the only cause of the new situation Israel finds itself in.
Relationships between Israeli leaders and US presidents have varied. Barack Obama is not the first to have a rocky relationship with an Israeli Prime Minister. Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush did not always get on well with Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, respectively. On the other hand, Bill Clinton was practically a groupie for Yitzhak Rabin and had a very warm relationship with his political successor, Ehud Barak. Similarly, George W. Bush called Ariel Sharon a mentor, and continued to get along famously with Sharon’s successor, Ehud Olmert. Yet through all these relationships, bad and good, Israel always maintained warm ties with both major US parties. AIPAC prided itself for decades on its bi-partisan reach.
Netanyahu has severely damaged that bipartisanship. From his deep ideological connection to US neoconservatives, to his barely hidden meddling in US electoral politics, he has alienated Democrats. Those Democrats remain dedicated to Israel’s security, or, in some cases, to AIPAC-directed campaign contributions. But with his repeated attempts to draw the United States into deepening conflict and possibly war with Iran, Netanyahu has forced Democrats to choose between their constituents and AIPAC. That’s a battle AIPAC would never win, but Netanyahu seemed to believe that AIPAC could do anything. For all those who accused John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt of demonizing “Jewish power” in their book on the Israel lobby, it seems it was Netanyahu who imagined an omnipotent lobby for his country in the US and wildly overestimated their power.
While Bibi spoke to AIPAC and other US audiences, article after article — in the Huffington Post, Foreign Policy, the Washington Examiner, Israel’s YNet, and other sites – proclaimed AIPAC’s diminishing influence. It really isn’t surprising. Bibi has tried to increase US involvement in the Middle East at a time when most in the US, despite being willing to continue to fund Israel and help it out at the United Nations, want to reduce our involvement in the region. And, while Bibi can talk the talk of the US right-wing, most Jews in the United States are liberals. With voices who support the rights of Palestinians as equal to Israelis gaining prominence, US Jews are looking for ways to reconcile their liberalism with their support of Israel in a way they have not had to in the past. Bibi is trying to push them back to the old narratives, and they aren’t working.
What if Netanyahu fails?
That’s a reasonable question. Right now, there is no serious challenger to Netanyahu on the horizon, but that can change if his bungling of the US relationship becomes more of a problem for the average Israeli. The challenge could come from the right, as Avigdor Lieberman is trying to position himself to make a run at the Prime Minister’s office. But if failure with the Palestinians and with the US is at issue, Lieberman wouldn’t be the answer, and no one more moderate than Bibi is currently poised to make any kind of challenge.
Still, it is now much more likely that the peace talks are going to collapse at the end of April. Netanyahu won’t be directly blamed by the Obama administration, but if they do think it is his fault they can easily communicate that in Israel and Europe, with profound consequences for Netanyahu. Meanwhile, more and more of Europe is turning against Israel’s increasingly right-wing and rejectionist policies. That could cost Bibi dearly.
Failure might not only harm AIPAC, but it could seriously harm more moderate groups in the US like J Street. If the two-state solution appears unrealistic, J Street will have little to hang their hats on. And without the moderate alternative, US support, apart from the annual military aid, is likely to diminish as well. Unfortunately, without a Palestinian strategy to take advantage of this changing state of affairs (beginning with unifying their body politic), it’s not going to lead to better days. And such does not seem to be forthcoming.
Bibi’s gone back home now. But his trip here was notable for how much was at stake and how badly he did with it.
]]>By Mitchell Plitnick
There’s a showdown coming, and the outcome may determine how the US runs its foreign policy in the Middle East, at least for the next three years and perhaps much longer.
The issues at hand are both immediate and long-term, and both involve an awful lot of “daylight” between [...]]]>
By Mitchell Plitnick
There’s a showdown coming, and the outcome may determine how the US runs its foreign policy in the Middle East, at least for the next three years and perhaps much longer.
The issues at hand are both immediate and long-term, and both involve an awful lot of “daylight” between the positions of the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government in Israel. The very top of the Israeli government, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and far-right “kingmaker,” Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor Naftali Bennett, has launched a full-scale attack on the policies of Barack Obama. They have dispensed with the fiction that Israel is not a domestic US issue and have brought into the light of day the enormous influence they have in Congress.
Bennett came to Washington to meet with members of Congress to directly lobby them to oppose the policies of the President of the United States, particularly with regard to a potential agreement with Iran that would forestall any possibility of a military strike. If Bennett was from any other country, no matter how close an ally, a foreign leader lobbying Congress to oppose the plans of a President whose agenda is backed by a majority of US citizens and who is trying to avoid a conflict whose repercussions could be dire would be outrageous. But with Israel, such niceties are ignored because, whether it’s Bennett or the U.S. members of AIPAC, lobbying and winning for Israeli interests over those of the United States or the rest of the world is routine.
But the issue is not limited to Iran by a long shot. Differences at least as profound have appeared in the context of the failing new round of peace talks that Secretary of State John Kerry worked so hard to put together. Kerry has had some unusually strong words for Israel in this regard, and the response from Netanyahu has been nothing short of hysterical. And while Kerry flatly denied the rumors that he would table Washington’s own plan in January if the two sides cannot make progress, a bridging proposal certainly seems like a very real possibility, and one that Israel would almost certainly resist.
As I explained elsewhere in some depth, both of these issues are consequential, but they also point to an even larger and more fundamental concern. That concern is not held exclusively by Israel, but is very much shared by Saudi Arabia and other countries throughout the region: the trajectory of U.S. policies and presence in the Middle East.
The United States has been the key external power in the region for decades, and it is not about to abandon its allies or, more importantly, its interests. But since 9/11, and especially since the invasion of Iraq, the US has extended its military in the region to no good effect. While both the US public and its president have made it clear in recent years that they wish to substantially diminish Washington’s military “footprint” in the region, Washington has come perilously close to war with Iran and to military intervention in Syria, due to its tangled alliances. Similar issues could well arise in Egypt, Jordan, and Bahrain, while the US continues a drone war in Yemen that could also escalate at any time.
What it seems Obama is trying to do is back the US away from war and limit Washington’s susceptibility to pressure from its closest allies in the region. In short, he is trying to base US regional policy on US interests, not on Saudi or Israeli ones. While US interests do indeed include supporting its allies, Obama wants to ensure that decisions on engaging in conflict are based on much broader range of U.S. interests in the region.
But Israel has come to expect a US policy based on its purported “security” needs, and Saudi Arabia has come to expect US policy to support the kingdom’s own regional ambitions. The fury of the Saudis was not hidden when the US decided not to attack Syria, nor has their irritation with Obama been difficult to detect over his lack of support for greater Saudi intervention in Bahrain and their enthusiastic backing for the military coup in Egypt. The language we have seen emanating from Israel and directed against Obama and John Kerry has been unprecedented.
Congress is where the key battles will be fought, but it’s not the only battleground. Both Israel and the Saudis have strong connections to American elites and have never had a problem getting their views aired in the White House and State and Defense Departments. But Congress is where the notion that the Saudis and especially the Israelis are the main barometers for US policy truly holds sway.
The talks between Israel and the Palestinians seem more and more like a bargaining chip for Obama with each passing day. The talks were doomed to begin with, and there seems to be little point in their further pursuit. Might Kerry be pressing forward with them so that he can present the rumored US bridging proposal, only to withdraw it in exchange for Israel’s acquiescence to an agreement with Iran? This seems like a pretty plausible scenario.
There is another aspect to both the Israel-Palestine talks and the Iran debate. In both cases, the Obama Administration is being much more forthright than any administration in decades that Israel’s view, while respected, is not shared by the administration. Congress is already stirring around this, but is treading carefully. If it appears too much like Congress is bowing to Israel against the president’s wishes, particularly at a moment when the U.S. public’s views about military intervention in the Middle East, in particular, are clearly more in line with the White House, the political risks become all the greater, especially with congressional campaigns just starting up. It is certain that such a perception is not something AIPAC relishes.
If Congress can thwart Obama’s and Kerry’s efforts regarding both Iran and the Israel-Palestine talks, US foreign policy will be entrenched on a track controlled by domestic lobbies representing Israel and, to a lesser degree, Saudi Arabia. In other words, the status quo will hold, likely for quite some time. If Obama loses this battle, the likelihood that a successor would willingly take it on is substantially diminished.
But this is as good an opportunity for a shift away from domestic lobbying forces in foreign policy making as we have seen in a very long time. It’s a battle Obama can win, if he is willing to see it through. No, he may not be able to win on both the Israeli occupation and Iran, but winning on Iran alone would be enough to bring about a profound shift in US Mideast policy. Israel knows that, and so does Saudi Arabia. The battle lines are thus drawn, and it’s a fight of profound importance, even beyond that of the two specific issues that have brought the battle to a head.
Photo: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State John Kerry at the US embassy in Tel Aviv, April 2013. (Photo courtesy of US Embassy)
]]>by Robert E. Hunter
“Victory has a thousand fathers; defeat is an orphan” — John Kennedy’s pithy phrase also has its opposite. We have seen this since last weekend’s failed effort to reach an accord on nuclear matters between Iran and the so-called “P5+1”, the five permanent members of the UN Security [...]]]>
by Robert E. Hunter
“Victory has a thousand fathers; defeat is an orphan” — John Kennedy’s pithy phrase also has its opposite. We have seen this since last weekend’s failed effort to reach an accord on nuclear matters between Iran and the so-called “P5+1”, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. Did Iran scuttle the talks in Geneva on the future of its nuclear program? Did the French Foreign Minister? Or was it a gremlin in the system, a mutual recognition that the issues remain in the “too tough to solve right now” category? It is hard to judge, given the vow of silence imposed by the negotiators on their talks, but most of them have presented their individual version of events in the media.
The prize for being cute goes to the British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, who said, “It was a completely united position [by the P5+1] that was put to the Iranians at the close of our discussions.” No open dishonesty in that sentence. The operative word is “our,” which refers to the outcome of an intense, late-night struggle, not involving the Iranian Foreign Minister, but rather taking place on the non-Iranian side of the bargaining table, almost surely to give France what it was demanding, lest “the West” look disorganized. That Iran rejected a position significantly revised from that ready to be launched before French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius arrived in Geneva is carefully hidden from view.
Truth, it seems, is not only the first casualty of war, but also of multilateral diplomacy.
All is not lost, many commentators have said, given that the negotiators, albeit at a “lower level,” will get back to work on Nov. 20 — assuming that there is no intervening putsch in Tehran by its hardliners against the Iranian negotiating team.
It is true that the diplomatic “process” now taking place has effectively taken the “military option” against Iran off the table, unless some new external factor puts it back again. Who remembers, now, that only a few weeks ago the Syrian government’s defiance of the US President’s “red line” against the use of chemical weapons almost led America to engage in its third Middle East war since 2001? The Syrian chemical weapons are still there; how to get rid of them has not been solved; but war is off this table, as well, to President Obama’s relief (and, one hopes, that of the rest of the civilized world).
In putting the best face on failure at Geneva, US Secretary of State John Kerry has also stressed unity among the Western representatives, perhaps with his fingers crossed behind his back. He had a choice to make: to allow it to look like the US had drifted onto Iran’s side of the argument — something totally unacceptable, certainly in US politics — or to reinforce allied “solidarity” at the price of fostering incredulity. He was in fact given a Hobson’s choice. Either M. Fabius had blind-sided the United States (and stiffed President Obama) — which France vigorously denies, claiming that it had made its concerns clear weeks ago, as a “matter of principle;” or Mr. Kerry had been let down by his State Department negotiating team. Indeed, in the absence of French perfidy, the US team should never have allowed him to put his prestige (and that of the United States) on the line by rushing to Geneva for a bit of last minute, pro forma deal-cutting (a traditional diplomatic practice to show that the boss is really in charge), followed by a formal accord-signing, without first sounding out all the other parties to be sure that nothing could come unstuck at the last minute. Otherwise, the US negotiators should have given Mr. Kerry a clear message to keep his distance.
There is no third possibility to explain what happened.
Nevertheless, with the diplomatic process now clearly underway, the chances are probably greater for success than failure in the bargaining over the Iranian nuclear program — though in the Middle East, counting chickens prematurely is always dangerous. For the proponents both of preventing an Iranian nuclear bomb and of a new conflict in the region, that should be good news.
But that category does not include everyone. Israel is understandably worried about its security and wants any deal drawn so tightly that Iran could not possibly get the bomb. The French have commercial interests with Arab states in the Persian Gulf to be served by their current obduracy. Along with other Sunni states, plus Israel, Saudi Arabia is desperately concerned that the US and Iran could become reconciled, with, perhaps in time, Iran’s becoming a rival for US affiliation (though not affection) as it was before 1979. Indeed, the first true and open US-Iran diplomatic engagement in three decades has already caused a geopolitical earthquake in the region of a magnitude rivaling the social-political earthquake of the so-called Arab Spring.
It is not surprising, therefore, that several American Middle East allies oppose a resolution of the Iranian imbroglio – opposition going far beyond fears that Iran might lead the US down the garden path and still get the bomb. For Israel, notably, an end to the valid perception of a potential nuclear threat from Iran would bring the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict back to the front-burner, an issue on which Israel has almost no supporters outside of the United States.
Yet the intense — indeed strident — efforts by Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to squelch US diplomacy with Iran carries with it potential risks for Israel. Until now, there has rarely been daylight between US and Israeli strategic interests in the region: Iran’s stance against both the US “Great Satan” and the Jewish state went a long way to provide the glue. But with the possibility that Iran’s revolutionary era and related anti-Western activities are beginning to run their course, Mr. Netanyahu’s approach is no longer necessarily consonant with all US strategic interests in the region. Will the US protect Israel’s security? Yes, including against the possibility of Iranian nuclear weapons. But Israel needs to be chary of undercutting the US desire to explore whether Iran can be drawn back into the international system and, as a potential side benefit, whether the region’s Sunni-Shiite civil war can be damped down if not stopped.
Netanyahu has welcomed France’s scuttling, at least temporarily. But the Israeli Prime Minister is not necessarily acting in Israel’s best long-term interests. At the tactical level, he is not wise to align Israel with some of the US president’s most strident domestic political enemies. At the strategic level, it does not help Israel if America’s capacity to be effective and influential in the Middle East and in the Western Alliance is reduced: the US, after all, is Israel’s only true friend and supporter. This is an asset that shouldn’t be casually eroded.
Such considerations have no doubt contributed to Netanyahu’s increasing isolation from much of the Israeli strategic, intelligence, and military elite, the backbone of Israel’s security since its inception, and which steadfastly opposes any gap — real or just perceived — in US and Israeli strategic orientation.
Provided that Obama sticks to his current course and assuming that Iran’s political leadership does not fall prey to its own domestic opponents of successful negotiations, there is not yet reason for pessimism to prevail.
But what happened in Geneva last week will impose serious costs. Opponents of an agreement between the US and Iran — in the Middle East and in the US — now have extra time to marshal their efforts. France, which for some years has sought to be one of America’s favorite allies, is unlikely to find the welcome mat on the White House doorstep. President Obama is likely to think even less than he does already of the virtues of multilateral diplomacy and the utility of the Atlantic Alliance for advancing US strategic interests beyond Europe. And while Israel will still be able to count on US commitment to its security, strategic alignment with the US on other matters cannot, at least for the time being, be taken for granted.
These are heavy prices to be paid for the pursuit of tactical advantages at Geneva last week.
Photo Credit: U.S. Mission Geneva / Eric Bridiers
]]>by Mitchell Plitnick
The trick to finding an agreement between the P5+1 world powers and Iran has become clear: keep Israel and Saudi Arabia out of the room. (But don’t expect them to be happy about it.)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is touring the globe now with his message of doom [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
The trick to finding an agreement between the P5+1 world powers and Iran has become clear: keep Israel and Saudi Arabia out of the room. (But don’t expect them to be happy about it.)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is touring the globe now with his message of doom about an impending Iranian nuclear weapon. “It will be tragic if (Iran) succeeds in avoiding the sanctions,” Netanyahu said in Rome on Tuesday.
That statement comes on the heels of his Meet the Press appearance where he said: “I think the pressure has to be maintained on Iran, even increased on Iran, until it actually stops the nuclear program, that is, dismantles it.”
Netanyahu is an accomplished speaker with the media. He is trying to move the United States closer to his own views on Iran’s nuclear program while minimizing the appearance of a difference between U.S. and Israeli positions on the issue. But, despite proclamations from figures like Vice President Joe Biden that “there is no daylight” between U.S. and Israeli positions on security, the inescapable fact is that such daylight is shining rather brightly between the two erstwhile allies.
That light was on display when Secretary of State John Kerry met with Netanyahu in Rome. While speaking as allies who are in agreement on Iran, they said very different things about what they expect. Kerry stated again that the Obama administration would be seeking concrete proof of a peaceful nuclear program in Iran before lifting sanctions. By now, that’s a standard disclaimer, but it’s so self-evident that it really doesn’t need to be stated.
Or it wouldn’t need to be said but for Netanyahu’s endless warnings about nefarious Iranian plots of deception centered around acquiring the nuclear weapon that both U.S. and Israeli intelligence agree Iran stopped any motion toward a decade ago.
Following the aftermath of the Iraq War and Netanyahu’s blatant attempt to influence the US 2012 presidential election, Bibi has been pushing for more sanctions regardless of whether Iran is being defiant or cooperative. He has also been hinting at unilateral Israeli military action while saying he supports a diplomatic resolution. Netanyahu has refined, but not changed, that strategy in the wake of Iran’s new openness to dialogue with the West following the election of President Hassan Rouhani. Now he is more regularly pointing to specific aspects of Iran’s nuclear program, some of which can indeed be put to use in developing a weapon, but none of which are actually forbidden under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to which Iran — not Israel — is a signatory.
In Rome on Wednesday Netanyahu said:
The foremost security problem that we face, as you said, is Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons. Preventing that is a goal I share with you and President Obama. And you have said, I think wisely, that Iran must not have a nuclear weapons capability, which means that they shouldn’t have centrifuges for enrichment. They shouldn’t have a plutonium heavy water plant which is used only for nuclear weapons. They should get rid of the amassed fissile material. And they shouldn’t have underground nuclear facilities, underground for one reason – for military purposes.
Here Netanyahu is arguing that an acceptable deal over Iran’s nuclear program should forbid Iran from the very same things that other NPT signatories have access to. The Israeli PM is saying this while calling for sustained sanctions on Iran plus more. The underlying hope here is that if Iran does win concessions, much of the existing sanctions regime would still be in place.
All of this is geared not toward preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon but toward keeping Iran’s economy in deep freeze and limiting its ability to expand its influence in the region. And Netanyahu has some powerful assistance in this endeavor.
Saudi Arabia is at least as concerned about Iran as Israel is. Few doubt that their unprecedented refusal of a seat at the UN Security Council, a spot they’d been trying to attain for years, was motivated in large part by their concern about a U.S.-Iran rapprochement. Their strategy may not be entirely clear (or, for that matter, well thought-out), but Reuters reported on Tuesday that the Saudis were planning a “major shift” in their relationship with the U.S. over Iran, the U.S. decision not to bomb Syria, and Obama’s refusal to support stronger Saudi measures to repress Shi’a protests in Bahrain.
The implication that Saudi Arabia would entirely abandon its cozy relationship with the United States, perhaps for one with Russia or China, is probably a bluff. No other power can come close to America’s ability to fund and arm the Saudi monarchy and its Gulf allies. But they certainly can take some measures to diminish, though not eliminate, dependence on the United States with closer dealings with Russia and China. They could shift some of their monetary holdings away from dollars and U.S. Treasury Notes, and they also could do a lot to increase oil prices, which is a serious hammer to hold over what is still a very fragile U.S. economy.
Thus far, however, the United States seems to be standing its ground in the face of these Israeli and Saudi tantrums. At the Rome meeting, Kerry held fast to what has been the Obama administration’s public position since the historic phone call between Presidents Obama and Rouhani.
While we welcome, and we do welcome, the change of rhetoric, the change of tone, the diplomatic opening that the Iranians have offered through President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif, we have made clear and we are adamant that words are no substitute for actions. And … we will need to know that actions are being taken which make it crystal clear… that whatever program is pursued is indeed a peaceful program… President Obama has made it very clear he will pursue a diplomatic initiative, but with eyes wide open, aware that it will be vital for Iran to live up to the standards that other nations that have nuclear programs live up to as they prove that those programs are indeed peaceful.
I have emphasized the part about Iran being held to the same standards as other states that have non-weaponized power because that is a very clear open door that the Iranians can actually reach. With full transparency that confirms what intelligence services have been maintaining for over six years — that Iran stopped pursuing weapons research in 2003 — Iran can be free of sanctions and the threat of war. It is precisely this point that is sending Israel and Saudi Arabia into apoplexy. And we can expect both their rhetoric and lobbying to intensify over the course of the next year, a year which Iran has identified as the length of time that a deal can be reached.
This will not be a simple matter. The politics around peace with Iran will become very intense. There will be real questions raised about whether the gains for the United States will outweigh the potential difficulties with Israel and Saudi Arabia — the US’ staunchest allies in the region for decades. Those won’t be easy questions to answer, but the overriding point will remain: Israel and Saudi Arabia need the United States even more than we need them (far more in Israel’s case). It seems like Obama and Kerry are subtly trying to assert that idea, which deserves popular support here.
Photo: Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Credit: UNmited States Department of State/Flickr
]]>by Mitchell Plitnick
Outside of Iran, there is no doubt that the biggest losers in Iran’s election this past weekend were the Likud government in Israel and its supporters, especially neoconservatives, in the United States.
The response of Israel’s Prime Minister to the election of centrist candidate Hassan Rouhani as [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
Outside of Iran, there is no doubt that the biggest losers in Iran’s election this past weekend were the Likud government in Israel and its supporters, especially neoconservatives, in the United States.
The response of Israel’s Prime Minister to the election of centrist candidate Hassan Rouhani as Iran’s next President was almost comical in its sharp reversal from the rhetoric of the past eight years. As was widely reported, Benjamin Netanyahu said that it was Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and not the president who set nuclear policy.
That is, of course, true, and it is precisely what opponents of an attack on Iran have been saying for the past eight years. Netanyahu and his neocon allies, on the other hand, were repeatedly pointing to outgoing president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the fearsome specter, the man who wanted to “wipe Israel off the map” and must be prevented from acquiring the means to do so. With Ahmadinejad gone, and, much to the surprise of many observers, not replaced by someone from the arch-conservative (or, in Iranian political terms, principlist) camp, the hawks have lost their best tool for frightening people and getting them behind the idea of attacking Iran.
So, Netanyahu has stepped up his push for a hard line on Iran, saying, “The international community must not become caught up in wishful thinking and be tempted to relax the pressure on Iran to stop its nuclear program.” Netanyahu is admitting that all the rhetoric around Ahemdinejad was insincere, and that the Iranian president is only relevant insofar as his visage can be used to whip people into a frenzy behind his call for war.
He has plenty of support in the United States. As the Iranian election results were coming in on Saturday, the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Josh Block of The Israel Project and other, similar sources tweeted incessantly about how meaningless the elections were. Ahmadinejad was exactly what the hawks wanted, an Iranian leader who displayed fiery rhetoric, was confrontational with the West and expressed hostility toward Israel and even Jews more broadly (though his frequently cited statement about wiping Israel off the map was fabricated, he did host a conference of leading Holocaust deniers, for instance, among other incidents). Rouhani, a man determined to project an air of reasonableness, makes the drumbeat for war harder to sustain.
Recognizing this, Netanyahu, his friends at Commentary Magazine, and similar extremists have warned against getting “caught up in wishful thinking” regarding Rouhani. Already, there have been declarations that Israel’s hoped-for attack on Iran has been set back by at least another year. And even the tentative, merely polite response from US President Barack Obama has been met with apoplexy from the radical hawks.
So, what does Rouhani mean for US and Israeli policy? Of course, it is very true, as opponents of war on Iran have been saying for years, that the Supreme Leader, not the President, makes the major decisions in Iran. But, just as the Likud/Neocon campaign to use Ahmadinejad as the face of Iran was disingenuous, so too is their current attempt to contend that the Iranian president, and this election is meaningless.
The Iranian President is not like the Israeli one or the British monarchy; that is, it is not a merely ceremonial role. As we have seen repeatedly, the President of Iran handles quite a bit of the public diplomacy of the Islamic Republic, and he has considerable influence over domestic issues, appointments and other facets of government. When the Iranian people made their choice, it was far from a meaningless one.
One event, prior to the election, was particularly telling. A few days before, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called on all Iranians to vote. This was not just a “get out the vote” pitch, as we see so often in the United States. After the events of 2009, there was, quite understandably, widespread cynicism among moderates and reformists in Iran. Khamenei drove the point home by encouraging even those who “do not support the Islamic system” to cast their ballots. The result was a fantastically high voter turnout: 72.7% according to the Iranian Interior Ministry, a figure that was supported by virtually all reports from the ground. Combined with the eleventh hour joining of forces behind Rouhani, this turned into a mandate for centrism over the hardline conservative views that Khamenei himself holds and that have dominated Iranian politics for most of the past decade.
While it’s a little much to assume that Khamenei’s call to vote would bring victory to a man who, while hardly a radical reformist, clearly sees things differently than Iran’s Supreme Leader, he surely knew it was a possibility. Why would he do that?
The events of 2009 are quite likely the answer. The contested presidential election of that year, and the protests, violence and national schism it produced did a lot of harm to Khamenei and Iran. The interior breech has not yet healed; more than that, the Green Movement and the Islamic Republic’s response damaged Iran in the international arena. It made it much easier to ratchet up the calls for war in the US (even if they have not reached the tipping point Netanyahu and his neocon friends hoped) and, with the subsequent events of the Arab Awakening, it undermined Iran’s efforts to usurp Saudi Arabia’s position in the region. Instead of the image Iran wants to portray — that of an Islamic Republic whose 1979 revolution threw off Western domination — it appeared more like the Arab regimes whose time seems to have finally run out.
There can be little doubt that Khamenei’s willingness to risk a new president who holds different views about Iran’s domestic politics and international strategy was meant to address those wounds from 2009. And therein lies the real opportunity.
Rouhani was elected by promising to fix the economy, improve Iran’s international standing, including with the West, and relaxing some social laws. Both of the first two are inseparable from the standoff with the US and Israel. How far is Khamenei willing to go to break that impasse?
On Tuesday, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Iran was willing to stop its enrichment of uranium to 20% levels, if “substantial reciprocal steps” were forthcoming. No doubt, the hawks consider this more deception, but Rouhani has also called for greater transparency for the Iranian nuclear program as well.
This is a real opportunity, and one that the United States and Europe must explore to the fullest. If the hawks are right, then this is the easiest way to prove that. Which, conversely, makes it all the more encouraging that Iran seems to be making the first move toward accommodation.
This is not speculation that Khamenei has suddenly had a radical shift in outlook. After all, his call to vote came after the usual politicking, and political shenanigans, that trims the list of candidates to one that the Guardian Council, and by extension, Khamenei approves of. Still, that list included not only Rouhani, but also Mohammadreza Aref, a reform-minded candidate than Rouhani who withdrew voluntarily to increase Rouhani’s chances of winning.
And it is not at all difficult to believe that, after eight years of increasing tension, declining Iranian prestige in the Middle East and an economy reeling under the weight of Western sanctions, Khamenei may wish to pursue a new strategy, one which holds the possibility of reversing those trends and perhaps resolving, or at least significantly ameliorating, some of the vexing problems that Iran faces and which, eventually, could destabilize his regime.
It is perfectly sensible, politically. Now is the time for Barack Obama to close his ears to a Congress that frames the issue as an Iranian choice between war and total capitulation and ignores even the experts it calls to its hearings, in favor of Netanyahu’s paranoia, and his lunatic demands. Obama has an opportunity to test Iranian intentions right away, and very possibly, to march the region back from yet another bloody misadventure.
]]>by Mitchell Plitnick
It may seem like US Secretary of State John Kerry is chasing his own tail with regard to the Israel-Palestine issue. But he is, intentionally or otherwise, raising some important questions. One is what the official Israeli position really is on the two-state solution. Perhaps the most [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
It may seem like US Secretary of State John Kerry is chasing his own tail with regard to the Israel-Palestine issue. But he is, intentionally or otherwise, raising some important questions. One is what the official Israeli position really is on the two-state solution. Perhaps the most important one is how foolish, inept and impotent will the United States allow Israel to make it appear? And of greatest concern to Americans, why is this President even less willing to confront Israel, at so dire a time, than any of his predecessors?
At some point during President Barack Obama’s and Kerry’s last trip to Israel earlier this year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to put a hold on issuing any new tenders for more settlement construction. To most, this means a settlement freeze, but it’s nothing of that kind.
Building continues at a fast pace, due to a very large number (some 1,500 residential units) of tenders approved between the Israeli elections and Obama’s visit. This was, of course, intentional, as Netanyahu knew he would probably need to make some kind of gesture to Obama. And another huge round of approvals is just waiting, held up in channels, and will probably be approved sometime in the next couple of months. In terms of construction work, there is likely to be almost no noticeable break.
But even this was not enough for Netanyahu. For much of the past months, the temporary hold on new tenders was only rumor. But a few days after Israel’s Army Radio announced it and the settlement watchdog group, Peace Now, confirmed it, Israel announced the approval of tenders for 296 units in the settlement of Beit El. Shortly after that, the Israeli government announced that it would declare four “settlement outposts” newly legal. The outposts are wildcat settlements set up without governmental approval (all settlements on territory captured by Israel in the 1967 war are illegal under international law). Sometimes Israel destroys them, sometimes it ignores them; in recent years, it has taken to legalizing some of them retroactively.
That Israel took these steps mere days before Kerry’s return to the region cannot be ignored. It was yet another direct slap in the face by Israel to its benefactor and the one country that stands behind it no matter how egregious Israeli behavior may be. This time, even Kerry took note.
He took the unusual step of summoning the Israeli ambassador for an explanation, and, from reports, at least some degree of dressing down. Which is all well and good, but Israel has no reason to worry about it. Apart from a perhaps unpleasant conversation for its Ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, Israel will face no consequences for once again embarrassing the United States.
How do we know this? Well, despite these Israeli actions, the United States pushed the European Union into delaying a vote on labelling imports from Israeli settlements, distinguishing them from products made in Israel proper. Of course, the US is willing to do this in part because it feeds the illusion that there’s a peace process for Kerry to work on, one which would be hindered by an EU move of this sort.
The middle of June has been set as an arbitrary deadline for Kerry’s efforts. Not coincidentally, Iran’s presidential election is scheduled for June 14. At that point, we can expect the Palestinian issue, already pushed aside by first, the Iran war talk, and more recently by the escalating Israeli involvement in Syria, to be completely shunted. Mid-June is also the point at which the EU is now scheduled to vote on labelling settlement products.
This would seem to be a process of going through the motions for the Obama Administration. Obama himself subtly indicated to the Israeli public in his speech there that he was not going to stop them from committing national suicide if that was their chosen course. Meanwhile, he seems only too eager to please AIPAC and the rest of their lobbying cohorts. Meanwhile, his Secretary of State is becoming a laughingstock as a result.
The Palestinians have been cynical about Kerry’s efforts from the beginning. Before this latest trip, one unnamed Palestinian “senior official” expressed his pessimism, saying that the Palestinian position of insisting that Israel release Palestinian prisoners and cease all settlement activity has not changed and neither has the Israeli position. Israel, for its part, continues to mouth platitudes about supporting Kerry’s efforts while acting to thwart them on the ground at every turn.
But while the Israelis are making the right official statements, they are also sneering at Kerry. The Israeli journalist Barak Ravid sums up the view of Kerry, both in Israel and among more veteran diplomatic hands in the US: “A senior Israeli official who has met with Kerry several times said the secretary of state has a messianic enthusiasm for the Israeli-Palestinian issue and acts like someone who was sent to bring the redemption. A Western official familiar with Kerry’s activity agreed with this assessment. ‘Sometimes there’s a feeling that Kerry thinks the only reason his predecessors in the job didn’t bring about a peace agreement is that they weren’t John Kerry,’ he said.”
This is not a negotiator who is inspiring confidence either at home or abroad. And he’s allowing Israel to make a fool of him. Even if this is, as one hopes, a strategy to move the United States out of the center of this conflict, which it is politically incapable of resolving, the cost is becoming very high. And while Israel laughs at Kerry, the only Israeli cabinet member who has shown any semblance of interest even in the failed Oslo process, Tzipi Livni, is isolated in that cabinet and fending off assaults from her left and right as she debates the governmental majority over whether Israel is even interested in a two-state solution. Likud and HaBayit HaYehudi, two of the four major coalition partners, both officially oppose it in their party platforms. The other two, Yesh Atid and Yisrael Beiteinu, both officially support some kind of two-state solution, but with conditions that are incompatible with any conceivable agreement.
Kerry’s credibility as Secretary of State is off to a shaky start, to say the least, and the lack of regard with which he is being held by not only the Israelis but also the Palestinians is going to hurt him throughout the world and especially in the Middle East. In the worst case scenario, that will severely handicap US diplomatic options, which would inevitably mean a focus on non-diplomatic means to secure perceived US interests.
In the article, Ravid mentions former US Secretary of State James Baker, who managed to get the ultra-right wing Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir to the Madrid Conference, which ultimately led to the Oslo peace process. The surrounding circumstances have certainly changed in more than twenty years since Baker’s day. But while the circumstances that both forced and allowed Baker and his boss, George H.W. Bush, to push Shamir to Madrid are radically different, that’s not the greatest factor.
The real difference is that Baker and Bush were willing to exercise real pressure on Israel to get Shamir to acquiesce. That is something Obama has repeatedly shown he won’t do. No matter how insulting Netanyahu’s behavior, no matter how much Israel acts to counter the best interests of the United States, as well as of itself, Obama will do no more than make mild statements calling Israel “unhelpful.” And Israel couldn’t care less about that.
It’s easy, and certainly correct, to blame AIPAC for this state of affairs. But even AIPAC has its limits, and they cannot brazenly defy a second-term President who is determined to get something done. Bush the Elder did it. Bill Clinton did it at Wye River. Even Bush the Younger did it in 2003, when he reduced Israel’s loan guarantees after Israel refused to alter the route of its security fence according to US wishes.
Somehow, Obama can’t find the same backbone. And ultimately, even if Kerry’s efforts were far more sensible than they are, without that level of presidential backing — a level that all of Obama’s predecessors reached, despite their own one-sided and destructively myopic support of Israeli excesses — there is no chance for success.
]]>It was just over four years ago, on 5 April 2009, that President Obama delivered remarks on the future of nuclear weapons in the 21st century. His remarks were received with hopeful enthusiasm throughout the world. They may have contributed to the decision to award him a Nobel Peace Prize later that [...]]]>
It was just over four years ago, on 5 April 2009, that President Obama delivered remarks on the future of nuclear weapons in the 21st century. His remarks were received with hopeful enthusiasm throughout the world. They may have contributed to the decision to award him a Nobel Peace Prize later that year.
If today the Obama administration’s achievements are measured against the agenda that the President sketched out on that spring morning in Prague, the record can best be described as “mixed”.
The conclusion, in 2010, of a substantial agreement with the Russian Federation to reduce the number of nuclear warheads deployed by both sides is a worthy achievement. The administration has imparted momentum to global efforts to secure vulnerable nuclear material, and high-level political commitment. US support has helped to bring about the creation of an international nuclear fuel bank, so as to increase confidence in the sustainability of nuclear fuel supplies and narrow the rationale for national fuel supply programs.
But that’s about all.
The administration has not attempted to secure US ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which opened for signature in 1997 and, to date, has been ratified by 159 States. This is a serious blow to the cause of nuclear non-proliferation, because US non-ratification has provided Egypt, Israel, Iran, Pakistan, India, China and North Korea with an excuse not to ratify. Ratification by two of these States, Iran and North Korea, would in one case serve as an additional nuclear confidence-building measure, and in the other inhibit the development of reliable nuclear weapons.
The proposal for a multilateral Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty remains becalmed. To be fair, this is not for want of US effort. It nonetheless has to be accounted as a setback on the President’s proclaimed path to a nuclear-weapon-free world.
And, third, the administration has failed to have any discernible impact on the nuclear program of the one state that was a manifest nuclear proliferation threat when the President spoke in Prague: North Korea. On the contrary, since April 2009 North Korea has conducted two nuclear tests, has threatened the deliberate first use of nuclear weapons, and has acquired at least one uranium enrichment plant to complement a small stock of plutonium.
Furthermore, the outlook for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has darkened. In 2010 the administration was able to take pride in having engineered a successful NPT review conference and stilled fears about the US commitment to the Treaty, fears which had been aroused by the G. W. Bush administration’s cavalier approach to the 2005 review conference.
On 29 April 2013, however, Egypt walked out of the second of three conferences tasked with preparing the 2015 review conference. They did so because the US, as they saw it, had failed to secure Israeli participation in exploratory work on creating a Middle East Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone (NWFZ).
The administration may be inclined to shrug this off as a temporary glitch, which can be rectified by subjecting to pressure an Egyptian government that is financially dependent on the US and some US allies. If that is the case, however, the administration may be underestimating the importance Egypt attaches to the NWFZ concept and the readiness of the Egyptian government to risk US displeasure on this account. Israel’s un-avowed possession of nuclear weapons is a long-standing affront to Egyptian self-respect and a cause around which it is easy to rally the Non-Aligned States which constitute nearly two thirds of the NPT community.
I come at last to my main point. If I were a US official who had the ear of the President, I would want to argue for the burnishing of this mixed post-Prague record by treating Iran as a nuclear non-proliferation opportunity.
To those who are accustomed to hearing Iran described as a nuclear proliferation threat, that will sound like a crazy paradox. But that description does not accord with the facts. In reality the evidence points to Iran being a NPT party that is ready to re-affirm its non-proliferation commitment, to offer state-of-the art international monitoring of that commitment, and to clear up concerns about certain nuclear-related activities prior to 2004, in return for the US accepting that Iranian enrichment of uranium under safeguards and for peaceful purposes, is not a breach of the NPT, and lifting obligations imposed, at US behest, by the UN Security Council.
Settling the Iranian case on such terms would be entirely consistent with the vision sketched out by the President in Prague. It would show that the US had reverted to a classical interpretation of the NPT, to the interpretation which has helped to motivate 185 States formally to renounce nuclear weapons since 1968. It would strengthen, not weaken this central pillar of the international system.
Photo: President Barack Obama delivers his first major speech stating a commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons in front of thousands in Prague, Czech Republic, April 5, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
]]>by Marsha B. Cohen
Today hundreds of buses packed with what organizers claim are about a thousand citizen advocates departed from various pick-up points in and around New York and New Jersey for Washington, DC. They represent NORPAC (not an acronym for anything), a much smaller, localized grassroots [...]]]>
by Marsha B. Cohen
Today hundreds of buses packed with what organizers claim are about a thousand citizen advocates departed from various pick-up points in and around New York and New Jersey for Washington, DC. They represent NORPAC (not an acronym for anything), a much smaller, localized grassroots version of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), whose annual policy conference brought an estimated 10,000 activists and students to the nation’s capital to lobby for pro-Israel legislation in March.
NORPAC’s annual Mission to Washington, DC lasts just one day, modeled on the climactic conclusion on the third day of AIPAC’s confabulation that dispatches busloads of attendees to their respective Senate and House members to thank them for their support for Israel and ask for more. Attracting little or no attention outside the regional Jewish media, NORPAC markets its annual pilgrimage to the nation’s capital as a fun day of family togetherness where kids (minimum age is 12) can join their parents and grandparents in coming face-to-face with members of Congress (“MoCs”), armed with NORPAC Talking Points, and demanding to know — in unequivocal and uncompromising “yes” or “no” terms — whether they will co-sponsor and vote for pending legislation supportive of Israel and detrimental to Iran.
The NORPAC annual Mission is also a bargain. The non-discounted registration fee for AIPAC’s three day policy conference in 2013 was $599 per person, not including transportation from the participants’ home city and a 2-3 night hotel stay in pricey Washington, DC. NORPAC on the other hand charges $175 for adults and $125 for students and this fee includes bus transportation from pick-up points throughout New York and New Jersey, breakfast, lunch, dinner and a plenary meeting upon arrival. Since the Mission is accomplished in a single day, there’s no need for any hotel expense. Advocacy training prior to the Mission is also included.
NORPAC differs from its big brother AIPAC not only in size, but in actually being a PAC (political action committee), aggregating and disbursing financial contributions to members of Congress. Throughout the course of each election cycle, NORPAC members host both Democratic and Republican political candidates and office holders — Sen. Susan Collins of Maine was the guest of honor in Teaneck, NJ at a NORPAC event on April 28 – establishing personal relationships even with out of area members of Congress who receive the lion’s share of NORPAC’s largesse. Political donors contributing through NORPAC can earmark their political contributions to any candidate they choose, even if he or she is not officially endorsed. NORPAC never endorses a candidate who challenges an incumbent with a pro-Israel record, as Shmuley Boteach discovered. Nevertheless financial contributions to challengers are accepted and contributed in NORPAC’s name.
Contributions channeled through NORPAC are not huge, but, as the organization enjoys pointing out, the impact of relatively small contributions is magnified when they are aggregated. More importantly, pooling campaign contributions through NORPAC exaggerates the pro-Israel lobby’s unity, strength and influence.
The top donor through NORPAC in the 2012 election cycle contributed $7,500, with the rest of the top 25 donors contributing $4,000-$5,000. In that cycle, NORPAC disbursed $10,603 to House Democrats, $6,350 to House Republicans, $62,330 to Senate Democrats and $54,741 to Senate Republicans. Political donations to individual candidates are generally in the $2,500-$5,000 range for House members and typically in the $5,000-$10,000 range for Senators, according to Open Secrets’ database – not huge in the Super PAC era, but significant insofar as these sums, pooled and presented to politicians by NORPAC, have a greater impact than smaller ones by individual donors.
What do NORPAC’s Mission minions, rolling into the nation’s capital on their chartered buses, want? According to NORPAC’s website:
Each year NORPAC selects different issues to present to Members of Congress related to legislation in the U.S. House and Senate. Previously we have advocated for stronger Iran sanctions, continued foreign aid, increased military and strategic cooperation between the U.S. and Israel, and additional funding for the Iron Dome anti-missile defensive system. A talking points handout is supplied to all Mission attendees before the event to bring them up to speed on the latest, most pressing issues.
How are NORPAC’s Talking Points for 2013 ”different” from all other years? They aren’t. Senate and House members are being asked whether or not they support the $3.1 billion earmarked for US military assistance to Israel plus $221 million more to fund Israel’s Iron Dome program in the 2014 federal budget, the details of which are currently being negotiated. The busloads of Israel supporters on NORPAC’s Mission and at the conclusion of the AIPAC Policy Conference are there to persuade members of Congress that the political price of even nipping, let alone slashing, military aid to Israel is not one that they will want to pay.
Meanwhile, Defense News reports that Israel is slashing its own military budget, violating a 2007 understanding with Washington that incremental hikes in US annual military aid would not be used to compensate for proportionate cuts in Israel’s defense spending. While US House Speaker John Boehner has declared that repayment of loans to China should be a higher budget priority than paying active duty US troops, members of the Israeli Defense Forces will be receiving a 21% raise. Of course, NORPAC’s Talking Points won’t be mentioning that.
Besides preserving military assistance to Israel in the 2014 budget, NORPAC is asking House members to sign on as co-sponsors of House Resolution 850, which, as a New York Times editorial points out, “would pile on tougher sanctions [on Iran] just as the two sides are trying to create trust after decades of hostility.” Senators are meanwhile being asked to co-sponsor Senate Resolution 65, which makes it increasingly likely that the US will be dragged into a war with Iran if Israel initiates one, despite the disclaimer that the Resolution does not actually authorize military action. The language of the original bill, introduced in the Senate in late February by Democrat Robert Menendez and Republican Lindsey Graham, initially granted Israel full US support if it chose to attack Iran in “self-defense,” which some Senate staffers viewed with alarm as “a back door to war”, according to Ori Nir of Americans for Peace Now. But it now includes the phrase “legitimate self-defense.” Even with the APN-approved language, concerns remain that the passage of S. 65 increases the likelihood that the US would not only support an Israeli initiated war with Iran but also be dragged into it.
The last item on NORPAC’s wish list is the demand that members from both houses of Congress sponsor and support H.R. 938 and S. 462 – The United States-Israel Strategic Partnership Act — two parallel bills in the House and Senate that upgrade Israel to the unique status of a “strategic partner” of the U.S. Ironically, the authors of NORPAC’s Talking Points seem unaware that the hold-up in the passage of these bills comes from the Israeli side, not Congress.
One provision of the “strategic partnership” is the mutual waiving of visa requirements for Israelis entering the US and Americans entering Israel. Israel’s problem with this provision in what Lara Friedman calls the Best Ally with Benefits bills is that Israel wants the right to impose restrictions on Americans of Arab or Muslim descent or on anyone whose political views it deems questionable or undesirable.
Currently, the rate of rejection of Americans seeking to enter Israel exceeds 3%, the maximum allowing threshold for reciprocal visa-free agreements between the US and other countries. US senators are bending over backwards to accommodate the pro-Israel lobby’s efforts to help Israel evade the requirements of visa reciprocity in exchange for the “strategic partnership” proposed by AIPAC and advocated for by NORPAC.
The Senate bill sponsored by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) proposes that Israel be granted visa waiver status if the Secretary of State determines that Israel “has made every reasonable effort, without jeopardizing the security of the State of Israel, to ensure that reciprocal travel privileges are extended to all United States citizens.” According to Mike Coogan,“Attorneys for both individual members and committees privately advised that complying…would be a flagrant violation of certain U.S. laws barring discrimination, and would undermine the U.S. government’s call for the equal protection of all its citizens traveling abroad.”
Promoting the upcoming Mission in the New Jersey Jewish News last week, NORPAC President Ben Chouake called May 8 “a day to play an oversized role for Israel.”
The oversized role that a few determined and committed people can play in our nation is astounding. Going down to Washington with NORPAC is a leveraged way of making oneself heard. Our members have made compelling cases and been key players in promoting legislative initiatives. This year we will have about 475 meetings planned for small NORPAC groups. A sincere citizen advocate in Washington is far more compelling than the most sophisticated lobbyist. Each of you that attend the mission has more influence than the 10,000 that stay at home.
Chouake’s article elicited a reader comment by Sherry Rosen, which reads in part:
…my take-away is that the most important issue facing Israel today is the need to encourage Israeli leaders to the negotiating table for peace talks. In the last few days alone, the Arab League has endorsed the idea of a two-state solution based on “comparable” and “minor” land swaps. and the re-endorsement of the official Arab Peace Initiative by non-Palestinian Arab countries is remarkably similar to the American framework that has been put forth for these negotiations.
As a “determined and committed” American Jew myself, I believe that the “oversized role” we can best play in ensuring “the survival of the Jewish homeland and the Jewish people” is to seize the opportunity that this window of hope offers. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if thousands of similarly passionate American Zionists were to meet with Congressional leaders, on May 8 or any other day, and express our abiding desire for a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, rather than confine our powerful voices to perpetuating concerns couched in the language of threats, defense, and funding sophisticated weaponry? Who knows? It might actually work.
NORPAC wants to make sure that their members of Congress never find out.
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